What is Public Cloud?

As we understood in our previous blog Cloud technology is basically means technology which is spread over
wide area network like Internet. Cloud solutions are of different types. They are mainly categorised into, Public, Private, Hybrid and Community Cloud. Each of them have their own pros and cons, but together they are shaping the future of Internet. These categorizations are based on the criteria of how they are implemented and for whom they are implemented.

Lets understand what exactly we mean by Public Cloud.

Public Cloud

A Public Cloud is a system where companies looking to deploy their solutions which are shared between a wide number of users, including, Organizations and Individuals. It can also be defined as a set of system or network of system resources on which a service provider makes resources, such as applications and storage, available to general public over internet. Under this model cloud services are provided in virtualized environment, constructed using pooled shared resources.

Public Cloud for all

Such type of solutions are normally open to general public and may be offered on a pay per usage model or even offered free with advertising model. Public Clouds provide services to multiple clients using same shared infrastructure and is thus the most used model of Cloud computing. They are typically deployed much faster and with more scalability and accessibility than on-premises infrastructure as a result the CSPs expertise and existing infrastructure.

Public Clouds are used extensively in offerings for private individuals who are less likely to have infrastructure and security required to run such a solution locally. However, enterprises utilize Public Cloud to make their operations significantly more efficient and cost effective. Solutions like data offsiting of non-sensitive content, online document collaboration or webmail help bring their operational costs down.

Why do users prefer Public Cloud?

Public Cloud solutions are built around the concept of sharing resources between huge number of users, with uninterrupted connectivity, data sharing and security. The cost of Public Cloud is spread across the users and they don't need to purchase costly hardware, software or supporting infrastructure, which is owned and operated by the Cloud Service Provider (CSPs).

Public clouds are flexible and can be provided on service-on-demand basis. CSPs quickly deploy various SaaS {Software as a Solution}, PaaS {Platform as a Service} or IaaS {Infrastructure as a Solution} solutions on Cloud platform and also are available to provide support round the clock to their clients.

Who are the users of Public Cloud?

Internet developers and entrepreneurs who want to create and prosper on the Internet. Web and mobile applications, digital media and e-commerce web sites, big data analytics, and test and development environments can all be powered through scalable and flexible cloud services. Plus, the cloud is perfect for individuals who want to create, modify, backup or store their important documents, files and media.

Organizations and governments are turning their focus towards Public Cloud solutions for various options that are currently available in an attempt to get the best benefits. Though there are still concerns about security and privacy that restrict them to completely accept Public Cloud.


Salient features of Public Cloud

Public Cloud Computing is waiting to meet the ever growing IT needs of modern enterprises. There are specific features of Public Cloud which attracts attention of various futuristic organizations. Some of the salient features include:

1. Resource Pooling: The most important feature of Public Cloud is high resource pooling. Unlimited number of users from both individuals and organizations, utilize the resources available on these Clouds. Such massive multi-tenancy helps bring down the cost the cost per user. 
2. Rapid Elasticity: Public Clouds are quick to implement and are scalable to requirements of the users. CSPs acquire server spaces and increase them as required thus providing a flexibility to its users for their future growth.
3. On-Demand Service: Public Clouds offer On-Demand service to their customers, depending on either the period of access or space or services required. 
4. Low Market time: CSPs normally take shorter timeframe to develop and market solutions which are placed on Public Cloud. Built on standard platforms, solutions are developed easily and are ready for marketing online through internet marketing tools.
5. Security & Redundancy: Despite concerns about the safety of the data, Public Cloud solutions normally offer better security and redundancy. Most Cloud providers use best available data security solutions to avoid threat of hacking while use multi server, normally placed at geographically different locations to provide redundancy to their service. 
6. Management: Most Public CSPs provide 24x7 system monitoring to keep their solutions alive. They go to an extent to commit more than 95% uptime guarantee depending on their server availabilities. Some even have 24x7 customer care to support to help customers across the globe find solutions to their problems or difficulties 

Benefits of Public Cloud

Both IT service providers and users enjoy benefits of Public Cloud. With the growing complexities of business and  personal requirements, quick,easy and cost effective solutions are really helpful, and cloud platform have proven to provide all three benefits.

We list some of the benefits of Public Cloud

For Service Providers

1. Public Cloud Service Providers {CSPs} build solutions easily and with small infrastructure cost. Most CSPs hire servers and infrastructures from IaaS solution providers to create and port their own SaaS or PaaS solutions or similar solutions which they offer directly to end users.
2. CSPs shift capital expenses to operational expenses with Pay-Per-Use model. They find it easier to manage their revenue as they charge monthly or yearly subscription to their clients.
3. Newer ideas and concepts are easily ported and made available without much effort or cost on Public Cloud. There is virtually no restriction on what solution can be created and ported on Public Cloud
4. CSPs are open to offer self service model where the end user takes responsibility for their own implementation. 
5. Newer upgrade and updates can be easily ported without intervention of end users
6. Marketing and market penetration is much easier through Internet, and with no limitation of locations clients from across the globe can be easily targeted and supported.

For End Users

1. Cost is one of the main reason why companies and individuals turn towards cloud technology. Public Cloud providers, divide the infrastructure cost within huge number of users and thus the end user cost drastically gets reduced. 
2. Cost divided over longer period of time through Subscription model or Pay-Per-Use model further reduces the initial cost of utilising the Cloud technology also leading to reduction in wastage of resources. 
3. Users are not forced into headache of implementing huge IT infrastructure to run complicated solutions.
4. Simple and quick implementations mean they do not have to understand complicated solutions to utilize the required services
5. Flexible and Scalable solutions mean they can upgrade or downgrade their services as and when they require.
6. Users are not worried about upgradations, updates as they are implemented at the CSPs servers.
7. Public clouds have facilitated service oriented architecture like never before in an efficient, better manageable way, raising a user experience to a higher level. At the core of all layer lies service based approach.
8. Since the solutions are internet driven, they are easily ported on mobile devices like mobile phones and tablets and end users can access their data even when they are travelling and leading to higher efficiencies for the users.

Thus Public Cloud is thus a win-win solution for both the service providers and the end users. However, like all solutions, Public Cloud also has its own limitations and concerns which hinder their complete implementations.



Limitations or concerns of Public Cloud

Most Cloud Computing solutions more often speak about the best part about Cloud than the chances of getting wet. Utility computing offers many benefits due to its ease of use, driving users to easily get engaged with the solution, leading to IT manager and CIOs getting worried about their job. Thus breakthrough technology will continue to unleash new innovations and bring efficiencies and advantages to its users. Since the cost also decreases and scalability increases drastically, the acceptability is also increasing by day.

Though Public Cloud technology has bought a shower of technology right inside our home, high performance and mission critical enterprise applications like ERP solutions face limitations and concerns which will take time to get resolved easily.

We list down some of the limitations faced by individuals and organizations while implementing Public Cloud solutions

1. Data Control & Security: The biggest concern for corporates to adopt to Public Cloud solution is the control and security of data. For example, Google apps can be used from anywhere over the internet, so chances of its misuse by the users is very high. Organizations like to hide their business from external world and are concerned about the leakages which may occur. 
2. Vendor: Cloud vendor may also become a cause of concern for the users, as they are not sure when the vendor may close his operations without prior notice leading to partial or complete loss of data. Also if being aware of closure, companies may also have to go through a tedious transition period to other services. Google closed its Google checkout, online payment processing service aimed at simplifying ecommerce transactions, which lead to huge number of web based application providers to jump across vendors to find the best one suited for their requirements, bringing a lot of these services to a halt. 
3. Latency & Network connection: Public Cloud solutions by default work in internet environments, and cannot work in non-network zones. So if you are using a document creator like Zoho, you would need to be connected to internet at all times to access the system. Also the speed of network becomes critical as the complexity of the solution or number of users increase. With the current speeds, many Cloud applications like Box, an online Data Backup find it difficult to be accepted by organizations. Performance of the cloud applications also depend on the performance of network on users side. Upload and download speeds are much slower  as compared with that of a local server.
4. Hidden Costs: Many Public Cloud services providers market their products with base price, sometimes even free, however, the additional costs are exposed only after the user starts utilizing the services. These are called in-app purchases, which enhance the application for the user. For example, a free online Games come with enhancements which are normally needed to play the game further, inviting user to pay additional amounts for better experience. 
5. Integration: Though Public Cloud solutions are on open platform and can be easily integrated with other cloud platform, integrating them with non-Cloud platforms becomes very difficult as the control of the application source programming cannot be shared with the users.
6. Peripherals Limitations: Most Public cloud solutions find it difficult to allow individual users to integrate their peripherals like printers or scanners, as many of them require software to be installed locally. However, it has been noticed that networked peripherals have lesser issues to connect to Cloud solutions. 
7. Interoperability & Lock-In: As cloud offerings proliferate, there will be ongoing challenges with interoperability, portability, and migration. In an on premise model, enterprises control their infrastructure and platforms at any time. In the cloud, they are locked in to a provider and no longer control their own IT. Cloud providers speak different languages. All the major providers offer unique, and often proprietary, data storage. Scalable data storage isn’t yet a commodity and is unlikely to be so for a long time due to the fact that there is no simple generic solution for distributed data storage.
8. Absence of Service-Level Agreements: Another big concern is the lack of well defined SLAs by Cloud providers. Though some CSPs offer guaranteed uptime at their end, however, there are many other factors which define the service availability, which CSPs cannot guarantee. For example, Inter country connectivity or undersea cable break can cause a major fall in internet services availability within a region. CSPs can offer only few protections to users who trust all their IT to their Cloud.
9. Performance Instability: Though the service providers guarantee maximum availability, with the ever increasing and inconsistent user base the performance stability is affected drastically. Recent crash of Google services on Jan 24th 2014, due to temporary shutdown of their Gmail and related services. This outage was blamed on excessively huge number of active users
10. Hacking: Hackers are always on prowl to get as much data as they can from Cloud solutions. Mail service providers are most attacked by hackers, followed by financial institutions, while some hackers even target data storage solutions. Dropbox has the worst track record with huge number of large scale data hacking regularly. Hotmail and Yahoo mail servers have lost their ground to other service providers like Google as they could not control the flow of spammers and hackers. 
11. Generic: Public Cloud offerings are very generic and offer multi-tenancy service which all organizations may not be comfortable with. Customizations limitations also make it difficult for organizations to accept Public Clouds.

Cloud service providers are continuously evolving solutions to overcome the above mentioned hurdles. Some enterprises are seeing clear benefits in shifting to the cloud and are adopting it unconditionally while some enterprises are moving their non-critical applications to test Cloud. Some even are preferring to try Private Cloud solutions at this point of time. Some others want to wait and watch how the technology evolves before deciding.


What to look for in a Public Cloud?

If you are planning to making use of Public Cloud solutions, then you need to make sure you choose the one that fits all your needs and is from a reliable service provider. Try most or all the available solutions, as mostly they offer a free trial period to test their system. Also check the reputation of the vendor on various web forums, see what the users are saying about the solution. See which service is used often by other users or groups similar to yours. Find an option with good and affordable prices, with less add-on pricing and enough features and options as per your need. A careful research will give you the best solution to implement for your requirements.

A Cloud computing solution like Google Apps or Microsoft Azure or Amazon web services can be a great way to for an organization to take advantage of Public Clouds. A Public Cloud may not be the best solution for many, however, future belongs to Public Cloud solutions with increasing acceptability within users.

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